


Shan And Cass Talk About Things After Their First Night Together (Who Decides Sleeping Together In A Mountain Forest Is A Good Idea (It Is A Terrible Idea BTW))

by ialpiriel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 12:29:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3410681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ialpiriel/pseuds/ialpiriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shankatara Adaar and Cass talk about some things after they spend the night together. Mostly things are cute and chill 'cause I want more cute chill things in my fic.<br/>There is very little mention of how terrible camping without a tent in a forest clearing would actually be</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shan And Cass Talk About Things After Their First Night Together (Who Decides Sleeping Together In A Mountain Forest Is A Good Idea (It Is A Terrible Idea BTW))

Shan is curled around her with his back to the wind, blocking Cass from the worst of it. He’s warm and soft and he must’ve pulled the blanket up over them last night because she sure didn’t, and it’s keeping the rest of the wind off. She’s cozy, overwarm if anything, but Shan is wrapped around her like she’s a lifeline, and she feels him shiver occasionally.

“Shankatara?” she murmurs, and rolls over in his arms. he wrinkles his nose and grunts.

“You heard any bells yet?” he asks.

“No?” she replies.

“Then it’s not six yet and you can go back to sleep.” Shan rolls over, but immediately thinks better of it and rolls back to face Cass again. “It’s windy that way,” he explains. He sounds like a slighted child.

“What happened last night…” Cassandra starts.

“I’d like it to keep happening, if you would also like that. I’m not about to change my mind in the light of day. Now get over here and keep me warm until you hear the bells toll six.”

“Then you intend to continue this? Even though we’re--”

“I can see absolutely no problem with it.” Shan sits up. He’s still naked, and Cass has to struggle to not stare at him. He’s beautiful under his clothes, all lean muscle and minimal curves and softness in unexpected places. He still has the scratch marks across his shoulders where she got a little...enthusiastic, the night before. He reaches up to rub one shoulder, twitches his ear, glares in the direction of the wind. “If you want to break it off, I understand, but really what I want most of all right now is to be bundled up in blankets and not moving because it’s cold as tits out here and I’m naked and I kinda wanna eat you out again.” He scrunches his face up again and begins to tie his hair back, looping it into a loose knot. Cass stares.

“You...do?”

He almost startles. His eyes go wide and he freezes.

“Yeah?” he says, voice small. “I mean, you--I--” His cheeks turn bright red. “I’d rather do it somewhere warm, but if you’d rather we do it somewhere we’re guaranteed privacy--or if you--I didn’t even ask if you would be okay with that, did I? Not like I did last night and I--” He takes a deep breath and runs one palm down his face. He’s still red, all the way out to the tips of his ears. “I do want to be between your thighs again, but it’s up to you when and where we do it again.”

“Perhaps--perhaps somewhere warmer, yes.”

“You sleep above the blacksmith’s shop, yes? They’re not up yet? That would be warm. My quarters are going to be freezing right now, I didn’t leave the fire going before we left. And that room is so fucking drafty anyway--hey, can you pass me my binder and shirt? You’re closer.”

Cassandra passes him his clothes, and goes to find her own. Most of them are piled together, at least. She catches Shan watching her while she dresses, and he catches her doing the same to him. He gives her a shy smile, and she leans over to kiss his cheek. He leans into her touch.

She begins to fold up the blankets while he goes to gather the candles--there are a hundred or more of them, probably, cheap candles that did a good enough job lighting up the clearing last night. Cass has gathered all the blankets before Shan has gathered all the candles, so she sets to work helping him. They dump the candles into a burlap sack, jumbled together.

“Did you walk all of this out here yourself?” Cassandra asks.

“Maker, no!” Shan laughs. “I’m just one man on a schedule. Ashasala is tied up nearby. I brought things down on him, you can ride him back up to the hold if you’d like. I’m sure he can handle a person and a half dozen blankets.” Shan sets the sack of candles on the ground and trots off into the trees to retrieve his horse. Cass makes one last pass through the clearing, checking for anything they mssed, until Shan comes back, leading his horse by the reins. He’s already saddled--Shan must’ve gotten Dennet to give him lessons somewhere along the line, as fast as he saddled him--and he stands still while Shan offers Cass a hand up, then passes the blankets up to her to carry. He hauls the bag of candles over his shoulder and grins up at her. “You may lead the way, my lady,” he says, and bows, sweeping his arm back up the path toward Skyhold. Cass giggles and urge Ashasala forward. The horse picks up a steady pace, and Shan trots along at his side. He keeps looking up at Cass, grinning, then looking away when she catches him, blushing.

For all his dashing act last night, in the morning light he acts like a teenager with his first crush.

But it gets her thinking again.

“How do tal-vashoth choose names?” she asks. She’s learned the right words; he won’t let her get away with using blanket terms like “qunari” anymore.

“Most of us just choose names we like the sound of, or that we think fit us. I was ‘Asaaranda’ for a while. ‘Shankatara’ was a joke I had with Adaar--who we called ‘Adaar’ because she was really good with fire spells and we thought it was funny. She thought it was funny too. Sometimes I called her ‘Ataash,’ which means ‘glory,’ because she really was. ‘Shokrakar’ means ‘rebel,’ and who she is was wrapped up in the fact she is a rebel from the qun. Some tal-vashoth never really pick names. Most of us who find communities do though. It’s hard to be friends with someone without a name.”

“So your name--it’s two separate names?”

“Yes!” Shan smiles up at her again, like she’s the sun and he’s a man in a dark cave. “And they’re not like human names--how I understand them, anyway--where you’ve got a name that says what family you belong to and one that says who you are personally. We’ve all got what we call ‘breeding names’ that are pedigrees of relevant ancestors, but no one ever uses them outside the qun. Well, Shokrakar took records, for the community, so that if you wanted to have kids with someone you could check that you weren’t too closely related. But that’s the only time we ever used them.”

Cassandra nods. They’re both quiet for a moment before Shan continues.

“Most of us hate them anyway. They make us into parts. Pieces. Things that belong to someone else. Not whole, real people with hopes and dreams and loves and likes and dislikes and quirks of our own. Then we’re just...qunari.” Shan shrugs. “I don’t know if you were going to ask for mine but--I’d rather leave the past in the past.”

“As long as you do not ask _my_ full name, we’ll call it even.” Cassandra chuckles.

“Why? Is it embarrassing?”

“Embarrassing and long,” Cassandra agrees.

“Then I guess it’s only fair I let it be,” Shan laughs. Cass grins down at him. He has dimples; the scars on his face pull them strangely, but that doesn’t make them any less cute.

The walls of the hold are towering above them now, and the sun is just barely beginning to peek over the tops of the mountains. The six o’clock bells still haven’t rung.

“We’re not going to get any time alone this morning, at this rate,” Shan murmurs.

“You’re the inquisitor,” Cass murmurs, and reaches over. Her hand ghosts past his horns--he had shaken her hands off last night, smiled apologetically and asked her not to touch them until he told her she could, but she could pull his hair if she really wanted to--and her fingertips scratch at his scalp. “Lock your door and order them away for the day.”

He leans into her touch and hums.

“I think that’s an abuse of power. I have Very Official things I should be doing today. And besides, aren’t you supposed to be a good influence on me, the heathen tal-vashoth?” He looks up at her from the corner of one eye. His eyes are half-closed, and he looks like there are wheels turning in his brain.

Wheels that Cassandra suspects she’ll like.

“I’m flattered though--you think I could entertain you for a whole day?” Shan reaches up and runs one hand down her thigh. It’ an absent-minded gesture, only barely sexual, but it still feels intentional.

“I think you could, yes. If nothing else, you have a very good voice for reading poetry.”

Shan throws his head back and laughs, dislodging her hand from his hair.

“Oh, so my tongue has more than one use?” he asks, waggling his eyebrows.

“I didn’t mean--!” she yelps, and she can feel her cheeks going red too. Shan’s are still pink. He laughs again, and leans over to bump his shoulder against her thigh.

“I know what you meant,” he says, voice low and full of laughter. “And I think I might take your advice. How long do you think we can evade Lady Montilyet? I’d say until seven bells, and then there’s gonna be an awfully loud knocking on my door.”

“Half past six,” Cassandra decides.

“Then we better get back, huh?” Shan asks. He speeds his pace a little, his smile lighting up his face as he goes. Cass curls her hand back into his hair, and he starts to hum.


End file.
